Craig Gillette
Offline
• • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
|
 p.1 #13 · Lightweight travel setup options / opinions | |
rickvenema wrote:
When travelling we mostly visit cities and / or national parks where we do some hiking. Therefore I don't want or have a camera backpack filled with gear and I think I want to minimise to a body + lens attached and perhaps a second lens. I will also not carry a tripod so my photos are always handheld or I find something in the location to stabilise my camera. My shooting style is photos of cities / landmarks (upcoming New York City trip), landscapes during hiking and photos of my family and kids growing up. I think my favourite focal lengths are 35 / 40mm for most occasions and between 20mm and 24mm for landscape shots. For photos of my family I like the 75mm / 85mm range.
My priorities are:
1. Weight and bulk savings
2. Photo quality doesn't have to be the best of the best. But good enough to handle handheld golden hour shooting without iso overload
3. Cost...Show more →
I might add a #4, not necessarily keeping the same order. "Limit lens swapping?"
I find the 18-135 and 28-200 are almost always well suited to my "walking" travel. Some don't find they want or need the reach to 200mm. For casual (as in perfection in lens and image quality can be traded for convenience, cost and weight savings) use, I want the reach to 200mm and the superzoom means I don't need to buy or carry or swap to a 70-200 or similar lens.
I already had either a 17-28/2.8 ff wide zoom or wide fast primes for my aps-c when the 20-70/4 and Tamron 17-50/4 and 20-70/2.8 lenses came along. (There isn't a comparable aps-c lens at least in Sony mount that i know of.) 28mm is not always wide enough but for my California travel, I only infrequently "need" to go with the wider lenses. However, dense urban environments, like "the old city" historic areas, big cities, museums, cathedrals, etc., the wides come out and go on.
Any of those 3 wider zooms might make a better urban walk around lens than the 17-28 simply because 40, 50 or 70mm are likely going to reduce the need to swap to the longer lens at least some.
For me, my limited experience has been that I'm not sure 20mm would be wide enough. You have the 20-40 and maybe adding in the 28-200 would do it. I don't know enough about the 17-50/4 when it comes to image quality to suggest it. and either it or the 20-70/4 is buying two lenses instead of just one with the 28-200. sometimes stitching can be a help to go wider, too.
With the A7CR, at 60mp, there is a lot of available crop space. Consider that the 17-28/2.8 if cropped, can be a 42mm angle of view at the same 26mp you'd have if using the A6700. The 20-40 could crop to a 60mm angle of view so considering cost, convenience, etc., the 20-40 you have may work well for you.
I find that with "noise reduction" features in post processing programs like Lightroom, DxO and Topaz products, I've been able to do pretty well in lower light situations. Of course, if trying for things like light trails from cars, etc., a tripod or other solid support is needed for that kind or exposure length.
I have both aps-c and relatively recently (in my age terms  ) added ff gear. There is an advantage to the larger ff sensor. But it's not as big a deal as some will propose. Aps-c can be less expensive, lighter and smaller. Of course it depends on specific choices just which trades one makes.
Cost? Aps-c is probably a clear winner here. The a6700 kitted with the 18-135 is substantially less expensive than an A7CR and 28-200. Smaller and lighter too.
The A7CR has 60mp and is ff but the added resolution can be very useful. I don't think it is enough to completely do away with longer focal length lenses.
I'd probably choose the 18-50/2.8 Sigma over the Sony 16-55/2.8. The 16mm vs 18mm is like 24mm vs 28mm in ff. Definitely wider but neither might be wide enough. The Sony is somewhat heavier and more expensive. It's a very good lens, though. But that's in choosing in aps-c vs choosing against ff. I'd want longer, too.
The 28-200 and A7CR combo has somewhat better image quality than the A6700 and 18-135. You get some aperture advantage to the ff pair. It starts at f2.8, so maybe some shutter speed and shallower depth of field advantages.
|
Took my Olympus EM1.3 with 12-40 f2.8 zoom and 17 f1.2 and 45 f1.2 Olympus Pro primes (34 & 90mm FF equiv.) 2 years ago, then the Sony A7RIV with Tamron 20-40 and 50 f1.4GM and Batis 85 primes last year. So top notch lenses for each system and both setups were excellent, but Sony setup was just a bit too much weight/bulk for everyday carry, so when I got home I thought long and hard about what I would take next time. 
The IQ with these lenses on the new 26MP sensor really shines.